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Glite Dictionary
crab-eating seal

crab-eating seal

6.7
A silvery grey seal from Antarctica that eats mainly small sea animals with shells
  • noun
  • /ˈkræbˌiːtɪŋ siːl/
translation icon : foca cangrejera
  • Unlike its name suggests, the crab-eating seal primarily consumes small crustaceans, not crabs.

Examples

  • The crab-eating seal is well adapted to the icy waters of Antarctica.

  • Researchers tracked several crab-eating seals to study their migration patterns.

  • Look at that crab-eating seal swimming gracefully!

  • The crab-eating seal is often seen basking on the ice.

  • The crab-eating seal is a fascinating marine mammal found in the waters around Antarctica.

  • Scientists observed a crab-eating seal feeding on tiny crustaceans during their expedition.

  • While diving, we spotted a crab-eating seal playing near the icebergs.

Synonyms

crabeater
vscrab-eating seal
1 7.7

A seal from Antarctica that mainly eats tiny sea animals

describes a broad crustacean diet rather than focusing only on krill
crabeater seal
vscrab-eating seal
7.9

A silvery-grey seal that lives in Antarctica and eats krill

is similar but described generically as eating crustaceans without stressing krill

Surface Forms

crab-eating seal singular
crab-eating seals plural

Morphology

crab-eating + seal

The meaning 'a seal that eats crabs' is directly and transparently derived from the constituents: 'crab' + 'eating' modifying 'seal' indicates a seal that feeds on crabs. This adjectival compound pattern (X-eating Y) is a regular, compositional English structure and is cross-linguistically common, so a B1 learner who knows the words would readily understand it.

Etymology

Crab-eating seal comes from people watching these silvery seals eating crabs and other small shell animals in cold waters. So the name literally means 'a seal that eats crabs', even though it mostly eats tiny shell creatures rather than large crabs.